A Thief in the Night - E. W. Hornung (phonics reader .TXT) 📗

him; he would but reiterate a conviction so chimerical to my mind that I interrupted in my turn to ask him what ground he had for it.

“I’ve told you already,” said Raffles. “I mean to make him.”

“But how?” I asked. “And when, and where?”

“At Philippi, Bunny, where I said I’d see him. What a rabbit you are at a quotation!

“ ‘And I think that the field of Philippi
Was where Caesar came to an end;
But who gave old Brutus the tip, I
Can’t comprehend!’

“You may have forgotten your Shakespeare, Bunny, but you ought to remember that.”

And I did, vaguely, but had no idea what it or Raffles meant, as I plainly told him.

“The theatre of war,” he answered⁠—“and here we are at the stage door!”

Raffles had stopped suddenly in his walk. It was the last dark hour of the summer night, but the light from a neighboring lamppost showed me the look on his face as he turned.

“I think you also inquired when,” he continued. “Well, then, this minute⁠—if you will give me a leg up!”

And behind him, scarcely higher than his head, and not even barred, was a wide window with a wire blind, and the name of Nasmyth among others lettered in gold upon the wire.

“You’re never going to break in?”

“This instant, if you’ll, help me; in five or ten minutes, if you won’t.”

“Surely you didn’t bring the⁠—the tools?”

He jingled them gently in his pocket.

“Not the whole outfit, Bunny. But you never know when you mayn’t want one or two. I’m only thankful I didn’t leave the lot behind this time. I very nearly did.”

“I must say I thought you would, coming down here,” I said reproachfully.

“But you ought to be glad I didn’t,” he rejoined with a smile. “It’s going to mean old Nasmyth’s subscription to the Founder’s Fund, and that’s to be a big one, I promise you! The lucky thing is that I went so far as to bring my bunch of safe keys. Now, are you going to help me use them, or are you not? If so, now’s your minute; if not, clear out and be⁠—”

“Not so fast, Raffles,” said I testily. “You must have planned this before you came down, or you would never have brought all those things with you.”

“My dear Bunny, they’re a part of my kit! I take them wherever I take my evening-clothes. As to this potty bank, I never even thought of it, much less that it would become a public duty to draw a hundred or so without signing for it. That’s all I shall touch, Bunny⁠—I’m not on the make tonight. There’s no risk in it either. If I am caught I shall simply sham champagne and stand the racket; it would be an obvious frolic after what happened at that meeting. And they will catch me, if I stand talking here: you run away back to bed⁠—unless you’re quite determined to ‘give old Brutus the tip!’ ”

Now we had barely been a minute whispering where we stood, and the whole street was still as silent as the tomb. To me there seemed least danger in discussing the matter quietly on the spot. But even as he gave me my dismissal Raffles turned and caught the sill above him, first with one hand and then with the other. His legs swung like a pendulum as he drew himself up with one arm, then shifted the position of the other hand, and very gradually worked himself waist-high with the sill. But the sill was too narrow for him; that was as far as he could get unaided; and it was as much as I could bear to see of a feat which in itself might have hardened my conscience and softened my heart. But I had identified his doggerel verse at last. I am ashamed to say that it was part of a set of my very own writing in the school magazine of my time. So Raffles knew the stuff better than I did myself, and yet scorned to press his flattery to win me over! He had won me: in a second my rounded shoulders were a pedestal for those dangling feet. And before many more I heard the old metallic snap, followed by the raising of a sash so slowly and gently as to be almost inaudible to me listening just below.

Raffles went through hands first, disappeared for an instant, then leaned out, lowering his hands for me.

“Come on, Bunny! You’re safer in than out. Hang on to the sill and let me get you under the arms. Now all together⁠—quietly does it⁠—and over you come!”

No need to dwell on our proceedings in the bank. I myself had small part in the scene, being posted rather in the wings, at the foot of the stairs leading to the private premises in which the manager had his domestic being. But I made my mind easy about him, for in the silence of my watch I soon detected a nasal note overhead, and it was resonant and aggressive as the man himself. Of Raffles, on the contrary, I heard nothing, for he had shut the door between us, and I was to warn him if a single sound came through. I need scarcely add that no warning was necessary during the twenty minutes we remained in the bank. Raffles afterward assured me that nineteen of them had been spent in filing one key; but one of his latest inventions was a little thick velvet bag in which he carried the keys; and this bag had two elastic mouths, which closed so tightly about either wrist that he could file away, inside, and scarcely hear it himself. As for these keys, they were clever counterfeits of typical patterns by two great safe-making firms. And Raffles had come by them in a manner all his own, which the criminal world may discover for itself.

When he opened the door and beckoned to me, I knew by his face